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Trades Alberta: Keeping up with new technology part of being a tradesperson in Alberta

Paul Roberts, chair of NAIT’s cabinetmaker program in Edmonton, explains the dowel-inserting machine with millwork and carpentry student Colleen Kelly in November 2012.

Photograph by: Jason Franson
, Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - While the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology has offered a cabinetmaker apprenticeship program for more than 30 years, students today are taking the trade of woodworking to a new level.

NAIT recently purchased a router, an edgebander and a saw, all Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines.

“It’s really quite a game-changer,” Paul Roberts, chair of NAIT’s cabinetmaker program, said of the new equipment that was previously on loan from industrial machine manufacturer Homag Canada Inc.

Cabinetmakers work in residential and commercial construction to build and repair fixtures and furniture, including drawing the product, making layouts and patterns, operating woodworking equipment, cutting, assembling and finishing the piece.

“Before there would have to be all kinds of jigs and fixtures, and a special setup on drill presses,” Roberts said of the cabinetmaking process. “Now, it’s all down on the drawing, you import that to the machine and the machine does it.”

The CNC machines are used with computer assisted design/computer assisted manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software. Learning to use the machines and software is part of NAIT’s cabinetmaking curriculum. The addition reflects industry demand for more cabinetmakers with experience using the machines, Roberts said. While the equipment is becoming standard in most cabinetmaking shops, employees don’t always know how to program the machines or how to use them to their full potential.

Cabinetmaking is one of more than 50 trades in Alberta. Apprentices and journeypeople in all trades must keep up with changing technology.

“It’s about lifelong learning. That’s something we always like to instil in our apprentices, that they learn in school, but there’s always new stuff coming out,” said Frank Light, owner of Channico Machine and Millwright Services in Peace River.

He’s one of 13 people on the Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training board, which was established by the provincial government to work with industry to establish training and certification requirements for the trades. The board meets regularly with industry to see which technologies are being used on jobsites and decide if changes are required in the curriculum to reflect that demand.

Light, a millwright and machinist, said tradespeople at all levels must keep up with new equipment and technology. So too must educational institutions and employers, as apprentices receive 80 per cent of training on the job and 20 per cent in the classroom.

For the 150 students in NAIT’s cabinetmaking apprenticeship program, learning to program and operate the new CNC machines is exciting.

“Students embrace it quite well,” Roberts said. “When they see what can be done on the equipment, their imagination gets fired up and they come up with some pretty good stuff.”

It’s a world away from many people’s image of a cabinetmaker with an apron and hand tools. While the centuries-old trade still requires traditional skills, such as manual dexterity and co-ordination – “machines can’t do everything,” Roberts said – today’s cabinetmakers must also be skilled on high-tech equipment.

At Portage College, a community college serving northeastern Alberta, simulator technology is shaping trades training for students. Those in the school’s heavy equipment operator program start the 16-week course with 40 hours of simulator training before operating a machine. The simulators help students get comfortable with scenarios they may encounter while operating heavy equipment. The school’s 12 simulators (four excavators, six crawlers/dozers and two graders) are housed in a mobile, 16-metre trailer.

When Portage students are not using the simulators, the trailer is on the road or parked at career fairs, where it is available to potential students. Large murals featuring heavy equipment at work decorate each side of the trailer.

“We also use the simulators for career development, so industry can use them to help train staff on the newer technology, or students at high schools can learn about heavy equipment operation as a career,” said Stuart Leitch, director of community and industry training initiatives at Portage. “It’s instruction, it’s career development, and it’s industry development and employee development,” he said.

It’s also fun, as many high-school students trying the technology at career fairs compare the simulators to a video game.

“The simulators get students involved. You see them playing with it for a while and becoming interested,” said Felicity Bergman, a marketing manager at Portage.

“This is Portage College’s first attempt to connect technology in a gaming sense to practical, experiential learning,” Leitch said.

The heavy equipment operator program is offered three times a year, with space for 14 students each time. Students operate heavy equipment and learn about soils, map reading, surveying, environmental protocols and land management.

Graduates earn a certificate, with many working in oil and gas, construction and road building around the province.

“We don’t just push dirt,” Leitch said. “We do earthworks projects that lead to careers.”

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